Who is Your Hero, Gates or Jobs?

feranick writes "Wired and Ars Technica are both running articles comparing Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, not for their business/technological achievements but for their humanitarian involvement. I am curious to see what you are thinking about the issue. What is more important, be a showmen technologist like Jobs or an humanitarian missionaire like Gates? And even more important: Is it important that donations from rich billionaires be public or should they remain private?"

Comments

throw the first stone

[stoolpigeon]

I work for a charitable organization. My income is provided by people who believe in what I do and give money to support that work. In the time I've been doing this, one thing has been made clear to me over and over again.
 
It is a huge mistake to make assumptions and judge others when you really don't know anything about what is going on in their life, especially in regards to their finances.
 
I do admire that the authors of these articles are in favor of investing ones resources in ways that are intended to make the world a better place. I spend a good amount of my time trying to encourage people in the same way. But to criticize someone, even with the caveats about anonymous giving, is not really helpful. What a person does with their money, be it Steve Jobs or the kid grilling burgers at your local Jack in the Box, is their business. And we are in know place to judge them as human beings for what they do with their money, especially since we don't know what is going on in their lives.
 
When I approach people to support what I do, I try very hard to not develop preconceptions based on what I know about them, because I am almost always wrong when I do. People I think will give a lot, don't (often for very good reasons, whether I know those reasons or not) and people I think wont give at all, surprise me with their generosity. But judging one as better than the other without the whole picture would be a grave error.
 
Finally, when Christ wanted to give an example to his disciples of great giving, he pointed out the poor widow giving two mites. It was not the amount that mattered, but the attitude and the self-sacrafice. And from this distance who can judge those factors about Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?

Re:throw the first stone

[mellon]

I can't add anything to the basic point you've made here, because it's perfect. However, to go in another direction with this, another thing to consider is that ultimately it's great for Bill Gates if he's generous, and it's great for Steve Jobs if he's generous, and either way it's really none of our business. That is, it's not our job to decide what the right thing is for Steve Jobs to do or Bill Gates to do. It's their job.

If they screw it up, that's too bad, and if we're in a position to give them advice that will help them to do a thing that will produce more happiness for them, that's wonderful, but usually we're not in that position, and if we aren't, then making judgements about it boils down to gossip.

One might make the argument that it's wrong for a person to amass great wealth in the abstract, and that therefore a person who accidentally amasses great wealth should do their best to divest themselves of it in a constructive way. But again, this falls to the person who makes the "mistake" of amassing this great wealth to judge, not to me.

Now if Mr. Jobs or Mr. Gates were to do something illegal to get their money, or something that we think should be illegal, then we could have a debate about whether the legal system had failed, and what to do about it, but again we wouldn't be talking about whether or not Mr. Jobs or Mr. Gates were a good or bad person - we'd be debating matters of public policy, which in itself would require no judgements to be made about the motivations of either party.

Gates deserving of "rock star status"?

[yagu]

From the fine article, near the end, drawing a conclusion:

On the evidence, he's [Jobs] nothing more than a greedy capitalist who's amassed an obscene fortune. It's shameful. In almost every way, Gates is much more deserving of Jobs' rock star exaltation.

I respectfully disagree with the author's conclusion, unless by indicating "much more deserving", he is setting the bar incredibly low. Gates' fortune is every bit as obscene as the author claims Jobs' fortune is, and probably much more suspect in how Gates acquired it.

I get sick of the implied (or inferred by the masses) rags-to-riches yarn of Gates, college dropout made good. It's not true, Gates is of wealthy background, was a spoiled brat from the start and never had anything to lose, i.e., he was always destined to be rich and that would never have been in doubt. Unfortunately, he chose to become a goon and run roughshod over the technology world, amassing wealth unethically, and eventually (by DOJ judgement) illegally.

While I expect good to come of money Gates gives away, it's certainly less because Gates is a good guy and more that money can buy good things.

As for the slashdot question posed: Is it important that donations from rich billionaires be public or should they remain private?, probably yes. But probably more important is the motivation. I don't get any sense Bill's motivation is humanitarian, but do sense much of the work and generosity comes more from his wife Linda.

Obvious Third Option: The Woz

[Marxist Hacker 42]

By far, when it comes to character, the OTHER Steve from Apple beats those two all hollow. Yes, Jobs and Gates are more materially rich- but The Woz is rich in family and hacking ability, and as far as role models go, I'd much rather be the later.

Re:The Devil on the Left or the Devil on the Right

[heatdeath]

I tend to view every move of Gates in terms of wondering if he's doing these things with the ulterior motive of helping his company, Microsoft

I really don't think that using $49 Billion of your own money to start a charitable foundation could *possibly* be out of a motive to help your company financially. Why on earth wouldn't he reinvest it if his motives were to help Microsoft?

That's messed up, man.

Bill or is it Melinda

[stoney27]

Before Bill married Melinda I don't think he really though much about the world around him. Not to say that she hasn't changed him and now he does. But I think it more her and he just gets behind what she brings up.

As for the question, I favor Jobs.

-S

Re:can it be neither?

[JavaMoose]

Why? What has Torvalds done that even come close to camparing to Gates or Jobs? Seriously, I am curious...

Mad, bad and dangerous to know - Jobs by a mile!

[QuatermassX]

As a creative sort of chap, I've always thought Jobs' heady mix of insanity, cunning and insight to be quite refreshing. Bill Gates is a nasty cold fish who seemingly knows nothing about humanity save that which he can buy.

Jobs makes things that are not just useful to me - they've helped bring out my artistic talents over the years - they've enabled me to create.

What has Bill Gates done for me and my world? Nothing, actually. He perpetuated some highly dysfunctional ways to interact with machines and generally works at dominating the distribution of information.

So he uses he obscene wealth (and it is obscene - and a bit of a fluke combined with Sam Walton-like business sense) for good. Well, that's great and I expect nothing less. Maybe he'll be considered another Andrew Carnegie someday, but I see very little to be interested by or admiring of about the man.

The things that Jobs and Co dream up bring pleasure and fun into my life.

Loaded Questions

[Saxerman]

Why not look up to those who do good works every day without worrying about bottom lines or shareholder value. Do we really want our business leaders to also be our moral leaders?

Greedy capitalists?

[XxtraLarGe]

I think charity is a great idea, and it's great that Gates is being so open with his endorsement of charity. But I think Gates & Jobs (along with many others) have created far more value for the world by creating an entire new field in which millions of people have gained employment, and been able to feed & shelter their own families without the need for charity. Not to take anything away from volunteers or philanthropists, but from that perspective, they have probably been far more helpful to the world than somebody like Mother Theresa.

Re:The Devil on the Left or the Devil on the Right

[SIGALRM]

Most of his donations were made to humanitarian causes

And while I can appreciate that, what really bothers me in comparing two "humanitarian giants" is, I'd rather compare the "giants" to the quiet sacrifices made by countless unknown doctors, nurses, clergy, and engineers who are touching, healing, building, and in general sacrificing their careers, their health, and their safety, for others.

I know a family practitioner who gave up his lucrative practice to work in Sudan under horrific conditions. He has no plans to return, I guess when the money runs out.

IMO, people like him are the real heroes.

Depends on the question

[sg3000]

> What is more important, be a showmen technologist like Jobs or an humanitarian missionaire like Gates?

The question seems too simplistic. If you want to ask the question -- who has done more for humanity: Gates or Jobs? Then you can look at acts of charity or whatever. If you want to ask who is the "most capitalist", then look at net worth. If you want to know whose actions illustrate the values one wants to live up to, look at their respective actions. If you want to ask who is the most selfless humanitarian, the answer is probably neither, as the parent indicates:

> It was not the amount that mattered, but the attitude and the self-sacrifice

The poster's submission makes it sound like all four of those are the same type of thing (hero).

It's really easy for a billionaire to donate a million dollars to charity. It's a lot harder for someone making $20k a year to donate a dime to charity. But the latter qualifies more as a humanitarian because of the self sacrifice, at least from a Christian perspective. When the billionaire does it, it's often for tax purposes or for PR. If they do it anonymously, at least they're not trying to secure favorable impressions in the history books.

I read the Wired article, and it was basically an author baiting Jobs to try to one-up Gates and his highly-publicized public giving. The author at least admitted that Jobs might be giving money anonymously, which is probably more in Jobs' character -- I'm thinking about Jobs meeting with a young man through the Make a Wish foundation. As far as I know, the meeting didn't appear on Apple Hot News for publicity.

As for a more riveting personal/business story, Jobs wins hands down. Gates used ruthless tactics to build his empire and then showed nothing but contempt for the justice system. Now that he's rich, he can through a few crumbs (albeit, crumbs to him are billions to the rest of us) to build his PR.

Jobs' story is more compelling to me: Apple's founding, buying Pixar from Lucas and turning it into a billion dollar business, failing at NeXT, but selling it back to Apple, and then rebuilding Apple with the iPod to chagrin of the loud protests from critics:

It may not be the last laugh, but on Friday afternoon, after the close of the stock market, Steven P. Jobs, the chief executive of Apple Computer, shared an e-mail chuckle with his employees at the expense of Dell, a big rival.

The message was prompted by the 12 percent surge in Apple's stock price last week, which pushed the company's market capitalization to $72.13 billion, passing Dell's value of $71.97 billion.

In 1997, shortly after Mr. Jobs returned to Apple, the company he helped start in 1976, Dell's founder and chairman, Michael S. Dell, was asked at a technology conference what might be done to fix Apple, then deeply troubled financially.

"What would I do?" Mr. Dell said to an audience of several thousand information technology managers. "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."

On Friday, apparently savoring the moment, Mr. Jobs sent a brief e-mail message to Apple employees, which read: "Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future. Based on today's stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve."

Founding a successful company is some skill and a lot of luck. Doing it three times (Apple, Pixar, Apple again) is more skill than luck.

Anonymous or not?

[rewt66]

I'm going to assume that a fair amount of Gates' giving does some good. It saves some lives in the third world, it helps some people. Probably a lot of people, given the amount of money involved.

So, from a pragmatic point of view, I don't care whether it's anonymous or not. He wants the credit? Fine. Let him have it. I mean, imagine that you're some dude living in the third world, and some rich American is willing to spend a few bucks so that you don't die from some easily-preventable disease. He's doing it because he wants to be considered a good guy, rather than because he really cares about you, poor third world person that you are. Do you care? Or are you grateful that he did it, for whatever reason? You bet you're grateful. What's more, you probably consider him to be a pretty good guy.

It's like the actor who, immediately after Katrina, went down to New Orleans, rented a boat with his own money, and started pulling people out of houses. So he had a video crew with him. So? If I'm one of the people he saved, do I care that he wanted some publicity? Not at all. In fact, if I ever wound up talking to a reporter, I'd be sure to mention how this wonderful guy spent his own money to rescue me (thereby giving him some publicity).

I'm no Bill Gates fanboy. I despise his business ethics. But I appreciate his charity work.

Don't require the motives to be perfectly pure. Just be glad that he's doing something, for whatever reason.

Re:Who is the bigger hero?

[MartinG]

I'm extremely disappointed to see the slashdot crowd almost entirely bashing Gates becuase they don't care for microsofts software.

It's not neccesarily because they don't care for microsofts software.

Perhaps it is because microsoft is a convicted monopolist and Bill Gates is the worst of the bunch. They have been found guilty in court of illegally crushing their competition in the name of profits. Had they not done that, there would have been more competition and prices would have been driven down. Gates and microsoft would not be so rich in the first place and the money would instead distributed in the rest of society where it should have been in the first place.

Gates gestures are nothing IMO compared to the harm he and others have caused society with their monopolistic practices.

This is nothing to do with software, and everything to do with a bunch of over powerful, greedy, damaging people who will stop at nothing to "stay ahead" in their industry.

Forgive me for not falling at their feet when they give a few percent of their immorally gained wealth back to society in some way.